The window to get gifts in time for Christmas is pretty much closed, but there’s nothing wrong with a slightly belated gift. And if the big fella left you some gift cards or green paper in your stocking, a little indulgence for yourself isn’t the worst idea. A great idea for either scenario is Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8, especially since it’s somehow still at its Black Friday pricing of just $250 at Amazon. This deal is for the 40mm Bluetooth model of the Galaxy Watch 8, in graphite or silver color.
The steep price drop for a brand-new 2025 Android smartwatch was a Black Friday and Cyber Monday shocker. Even more surprising is how that $250 price has endured all the way through the holiday shopping season and, apparently, beyond. The Galaxy Watch 8 earned stellar reviews when it dropped this past July and its sales numbers have been consistently excellent. It’s not a refurbished or scratch-and-dent sale or a previous-generation markdown. Best advice? Don’t question it, just buy it.
The 8 Is Great
The release of the Galaxy Watch8 series this summer was a huge hit, in no small part because of the number of major upgrades from the very popular Watch7 models. The body of the Galaxy Watch 8 is slimmer and more streamlined, and the screen brightness goes as high as 3,000 nits — 50 percent more than the 2,000-nit max of the Watch7. The Watch8 also comes with a bigger, longer-lasting battery than its predecessor, and improved interaction with Galaxy AI across all of its features.
The Galaxy AI features of the Watch8 really shine when they’re integrated with the watch’s fitness tracking and coaching tech. The watch tracks your performance and compares it to past activity, with AI-powered insights that help create recommendations and prompts throughout the day. Galaxy AI also bolsters the heart-rate analysis performed by the Galaxy Watch8 by filtering out your body’s movements to capture a clearer, more accurate reading.
Join the Galaxy
As a standalone smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 is great, but when it’s an intertwined part of a larger collection of Samsung devices, it really shows its true potential. Paired with a Samsung smartphone, the Galaxy Watch8 receives and displays your text messages and other alerts, and lets you reply to the texts without having to grab your phone. Breaking news, weather alerts, scoring updates from your favorite sports teams — they’re all delivered straight to your wrist, and easily seen and read thanks to the enhanced brightness of the Watch8.
It’s not for us to question the wisdom of Samsung or Amazon when they put one of Samsung’s newest and most advanced smartwatches on sale for 29% off, and then leave it at or very near that exceptionally low $250 price for weeks on end, all through the holiday shopping season. The best solution is to accept this $250 Amazon deal on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 as a end-of-year gift.
